Dover to Calais to Bruges

November 24th - 26th 2012
At long last we have made the crossing over to France in a motor home that so far appears to be working well.  We took the early ferry to Calais and then drove straight down to Bruges arriving at lunchtime.  With only a little trouble we found the 'aire' a special parking area specific for motor homes which provided us with overnight parking, water, electricity and waste disposal at minimal cost.  The site was along side the river and only a 5 minute walk into the medieval centre of this beautiful city. it was perfect for us and fortunately we arrived in time not to have to worry about finding a parking place but had we left it later we may have struggled as all the spots were full by the evening.  Why do we not have this type of facility in the UK?  It cannot cost much to provide and I am sure must bring in additional income into the town. 

Church tower at sunset

Night time in Brugges

 

The ice rink

Mike and I spent two days in Bruges. This gave us sufficient time to wander around the old town and admire the various buildings.  It also gave us time to sample the chocolates, waffles and of course the Belgian beers before we left.  Although still early in the season the town was well decorated with Christmas lights and there was a good atmosphere around the ice rink that had been created to coincide with the Christmas markets.  These we found disappointingly limited but there were so many shops around maybe there was no need for market stalls.

We woke on our second day to find that the rain had cleared and although very windy it was a lovely sunny morning.  We decided to cycle around the outskirts of the town, following the canals.  Cycling is such a great way to see a city.  We passed some lovely views, windmills, bridges and more old buildings.  Look at the photo of the lace work that has been incorporated into the chain link fencing that surrounded one of the windmills - such detail.

lace work on chain link fencing

A gate house

After cycling for a couple of hours or so we made our way back to Buster for a soup and pate ('Belgian coarse', of course) lunch and a short rest.  We then went back into town on foot to buy some Belgian chocolates.  This was not easy as there was so much choice with prices going up to 30 euros a kilo in some shops.  But we found some that we liked and we are now limiting ourselves to one a day.  Well, you can have too much of a good thing.  We had also decided that we needed a beer so we went to a bar we had seen the previous day that was advertising over 1000 different brews - again too much choice.  We went for a cherry flavoured version and a 'leffe type' beer.  Both were good but we were sitting in an outside bar terrace and we were getting cold so we went home to finish off with a bottle of Hoergaarden with a pasta supper.  It seemed a very apt way to spend our final hours in this part of Belgium.  Tomorrow we move onto Brussels.